


Cinderella Kiss

by decaf_kitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alpha Umino Iruka, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bottom Hatake Kakashi, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Modern Era, Omega Hatake Kakashi, Omega Verse, Top Umino Iruka
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:35:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29610909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: While being unjust to omegas and betas, society praised him as Alpha-san, so Iruka hid his fears and pain behind vices. Years later, Iruka's finally getting his life together, trying to get a home ready for the boy he hopes to adopt. Still... he's haunted by a Cinderella Kiss from a mysterious omega that happened on the same night he got his facial scar. More recently, though, he's become very aware and possibly terrifed of his omega neighbor, the legendary illegal street fighter, Kakashi, the son of the White Fang.ABO Modern AU.(As flailinginlove once wrote for "Scent and Sensibility": A/B/O dynamics but without mpreg, dub-con, and rivers of gushing fluids, also trying to avoid overly stereotyped gender roles.)
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 29
Kudos: 136





	1. Iruka's Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stop thinking about this idea - a Very Modern ABO with Kakashi & Iruka as two societal outcasts. Iruka perspective 1st chapter, Kakashi 2nd chapter. Very intense sex scenes (yes, multiple) in 2nd chapter. (Update: There will be 3 chapters, with a mix of Iruka/Kakashi perspective in the 3rd).
> 
> Congratulations to you. You've made it this far into 2021. Know that I am always proud of you. Really! When you're tired and feel like you didn't do anything all day or all week - yes, I'm proud of you. Thank you for being alive. I'm glad to meet you here. I hope you enjoy this story. Leave a kudos or comment if you can. You make a difference in my life.
> 
> ______

Through the haze of his history, there was this kiss. 

Iruka’s hands desperately held onto the omega’s shoulders, digging his nails into the black leather jacket, but the man was much stronger than him, and he’d pinned Iruka against an exposed brick wall. 

The omega wasn’t in heat; he wasn’t drunk. He was sober, while Iruka was fucked up on pills. It made Iruka embarrassed and disappointed in himself, because he wanted to be more and do more as they kissed each other so deeply in the dark, but, fortunately, the omega pursued Iruka, pushed his tongue inside Iruka’s mouth, dipped his hand down into Iruka’s pants, grabbed Iruka’s cock and stroked its weeping tip until Iruka was writhing against the rough red brick behind him and was panting-begging-whining for release openly into the omega’s kiss.

A party dazzled only feet away inside the townhouse – they were outside on the porch, barely separated from everyone else. Iruka had approached the lone omega smoking a cigarette, asked a few questions with a smile and curiosity and sexual interest, then… He got his whole life handed to him against the wall with the omega’s two differently-colored eyes staring through him like daggers. Grey eye. Red-coppery eye. Iruka felt so unlike an alpha: he grasped feebly at the man’s jacket as he seized up, hot and shocked. He’d come on the omega’s ripped jeans! 

The omega – taller, leaner, stronger, cooler than Iruka – had only leaned down and nipped Iruka on the neck, an eerie and surreal reversal of an alpha bite mark. 

He held tightly onto that smoky-grey memory, from the time before, back when he did drugs and drank away his pain. Before the scar sweeping his face, the one that sliced across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. That kiss was the night of the scar… that Iruka was sure. Was the kiss the cause of the scar? Or the consequence? He couldn’t tell. His brain was Swiss cheese for those years; his memory was like a puzzle with a dozen missing pieces thrown into a tornado.

He couldn’t remember the omega’s face - or almost anything about him. 

But that kiss… Could it be a Cinderella kiss? With a second kiss, could he identify the omega again…? But who goes around kissing random omegas like that! Not Iruka. Not anymore!

Still, the things he’d do for love. 

This latest discovery made him change everything. He’d met a student... Iruka knew he had to intervene; he had to do something, because no one else had, and no one else would. Most obviously, Naruto shouldn’t be in foster care, but Iruka knew too well that the streets were an ugly, bad place – so the boy stayed tumbling through the system until Iruka could provide for him. Although his own once-homeless teenage group had survived to adulthood, Iruka had recently looked around his friends’ studio apartment and winced. The six of them in one small space, five betas and him, it was very tight, but it had worked until now. Much better than the streets, bridges, alleys, parks - where they had all been all the years before.

Yet the foster care worker had told him, just a few days ago, “You wanna adopt, Alpha-san? You need three things: a job, a house, and a mate. You get those, you get the kid. That’s it. Go get em.”

Two years ago, Iruka had gotten clean, and he hadn’t used pills or drank alcohol since. Still, straight living meant strict isolation at home beyond work: he literally avoided temptation. Back in the bad times, he’d been the life of the party, downing Vicodin and tequila, hiding pain with a laughter. But recovery washed all that away; he’d now rather vomit than turn up the volume, musically or metaphorically. It also helped him avoid omegas, who he’d enjoyed during earlier parts of his life, possibly to the point of indulgence, which made him feel so guilty he’d gone to confession at the local Catholic Church, even though that wasn’t his religious faith at all. 

In any case, meeting Naruto at the school where he was substitute teaching had changed his mind about what to do with his life. Although Iruka had been weakly trying to ‘get things together’ and help with rent for his sad studio apartment with his five friends, a bratty blonde child in need of familial affection made him move, really move. 

Yes, real society sucked, he already knew that… but he’d brave it.

_For Naruto. To save the boy. To protect him._

So, mustering up false alpha bravado, Iruka entered the Real Estate Office, presented his medical credentials as an Alpha, and asked what properties were available for someone in his limited price range. Shockingly, the agent didn’t laugh at him. A beta would have gotten shooed out the door for only having a part-time job while trying to find a place. Worse, for an omega… An omega might’ve had the cops called on them, with harsh questions about ‘does your mate know where you are?’

The only house he could afford on his own was huge, run-down, recently used by squatters, maybe a serial killer? An initial sweep of the property found no corpses, but Iruka felt a spooky feeling like something sick had been done there, and he visited a few different religious leaders to get their blessings. Still, even after his friends visited and asked to hang out, Iruka forced himself to send them away, deciding that he’d present himself as this ‘Alpha-san’ everyone had always called him. Of course, it was a disgusting, stupid thing, how society smothered alphas with praise, inflating their pride, and how it trampled omegas, destroying their self-worth, but Naruto needed a family! 

To adopt Naruto, he had to do society’s worst. And… society wanted Alpha-san to run a house! 

So, Iruka tried to learn how to renovate one. Not because he thought alphas did that, but because bats lived in the attic, racoons lived in the walls, and squirrels lived everywhere else. For the first week, he slept upstairs with a metal baseball bat and an eight-inch knife, listening to the animals scratching the wood all around him and the late-night noise of an unfamiliar street. Of course, he clutched at both the weapons… and sometimes randomly burst into tears.

Such a brave alpha, he thought, being cruel to himself, which only made him sniffle more.

The street he lived on was a bad street. It had fallen on hard times – fallen face-first into arson, government neglect, and opioid abuse – but it was mostly just old and abandoned. The real estate agent hoped an alpha would improve the neighborhood (how misguided could people be!), but at least it got Iruka a house. One step closer to adopting Naruto officially, to getting him out of the system that had failed Iruka and all his friends and so many other kids in the city.

He just had to save Naruto… 

No matter what.

The second week when Iruka was installing new glass on the broken front windows, a beta woman drifted by and called out to him. She sold sex and pills, he recognized the signs. But he didn’t want to be rude, so they had a brief conversation, where he made it clear, yes, alpha, no, not interested, yes, renting the house, yes, have a real job (though he didn’t say it was part-time substitute teaching, or where it was, that was way, way too much information! Sorry!).

Then, suddenly, she tossed a look over the metal chain fence separating Iruka’s yard and the one next door, to where a similar styled house stood. It was not falling apart as much, but it was still a miserable building, having seen much better days. Unlike Iruka’s lot, with its tall grass, overgrown weeds, and random garbage, the one next door looked well-tended, except for a dilapidated storage shed in the corner, growing moss on the roof, leaning a little left.

“You live next to where they fight Ka-Ka-Shi.” When confusion ran across Iruka’s expression, the beta leered, rolling her fingers in the air, theatrical and wild. “White Fang’s son. Friend Killer. You must know him. I can tell - you were a street kid.” 

He stiffened, then, and pulled away, soon leaving the yard entirely. There was no need for further information, anyway. So, there was fighting in the basement next door with an omega stud. It just meant Iruka needed to get more protection, fix locks on the doors, and bar every window, all of which he would’ve done regardless of the illegal fighting on the other side of the fence. Maybe not so soon, but he would have done it when Naruto came to live with him.

That night, Iruka felt lonely. No roommates, no son, no partner… Forlorn thoughts constricted his throat. The moon hung high, white, soft in the black sky. So much light pollution. No stars. Not a single one. After wandering downstairs, Iruka wondered about contacting his friends, but… he should stand on his own, be the great Alpha-san, that’s what they all wanted him to do, what they all wanted him to be, so he could adopt Naruto, so he could save the kid.

But he wasn’t a loner, not by nature, not by nurture. The house was too big for a single person. If only the racoons could talk like in a Disney movie…? Trying to sigh out his sadness, Iruka leaned down heavy on the kitchen counter, staring across his neighbor’s yard. 

Old images of the omega fighter drifted through his mind: Kakashi Hatake, the lost son of the White Fang. His father had been the ill-fated but legendary Mixed Martial Arts champion who killed himself rather than throw a match. Who didn’t know him? Kakashi himself was genetically damned as a lowly omega, but he fought bloody and bitter instead of living weak and wispy. The streets loved stories like his, ones with tragedy and resilience. Legends like his seemed to end miserably, but also spectrally never ever ended.

So the fighter was here, living in this sorry neighborhood. Like all the tall tales of homeless kids, Iruka had believed that Kakashi was either not-real or long dead already. Years ago, cold and huddling with betas for warmth, he’d relished the story of an omega up against the odds, battling people for his rights and a higher place in society. It seemed fantastical, even fun.

The house looked awful – the one next door. Better than his building, yes, but still shabby. Somewhere over there was Kakashi, supposedly. The legend. The dreamy omega fighter.

Looking wistfully through the window, Iruka worried his bottom lip. _Was_ Kakashi out there? Were legends real? … Would the racoons start talking to him if he stayed alone too much longer?

In the yard next door, the storage shed door opened, just a crack. 

Iruka froze in place.

A small brown short-haired dog bounded out… and ran circles in the trimmed grass for a while. As it was some bizarre time late at night, Iruka questioned if he might be dreaming or delirious. But the rickety shed door stayed open. The dog ran around. Iruka stared forever. His alpha senses flickered in panicked confusion; he wanted to calm his instincts, but the night threw him. They had saved him a thousand times on the street, but now they made no sense, telling him _something was very special_ about this early morning vision.

“Biscuit.” An easygoing call floated through the night. “Come back.”

The voice – it came from the shed.

A cold shiver flew through Iruka; he’d never known one like it before. He watched a pale man’s hand appear outside the shed and then coax the dog back inside with a wave. The mutt obeyed sweetly, and the door closed. Common sense put together the pieces real quick. Even though he’d been waxing poetic a moment ago, harsh reality crushed into him like a collapsing building.

Kakashi lived in the shed.

The legend was alive, and he lived in the sad little storage shed next door.

It… didn’t matter... Work demanded a lot of Iruka: he had to stay available every day. Answering calls on random mornings to substitute teach. On campus, he played up his alpha genetics. It was an uncomfortable performance, one that submitted to stereotype. Distaste was too kind a word for how Iruka felt about it. He hated it. Had he a therapist or diary, Iruka would’ve expressed repulsion so black and deep, it would have bordered on cancerous sick.

But they hired him because he was an alpha. The real estate agency rented the house to him… because he was an alpha. He could save Naruto from foster care… because he was… an alpha.

… not because he was Iruka.

Two weeks into living on his own, a storm rolled over the city, dampening the streets. The gutters overflowed, stuffed as they already were with trash and debris. Daily cold and alone, Iruka had refused to turn to his old vices, but loneliness had made him more than a bit upset. The rain hit the house hard, and weak as it was, the roof didn’t last the hours of the deluge.

Soon, a leak from the attic become a steady shower, so Iruka climbed up the dusty half-broken ladder into the black space in search of the hole in the roof. Of course, finding it was easy. Seeing signs of nesting squirrels and bats in his attic – now, that was horrifying! – but Iruka survived, like he always did, always would… probably…? Maybe with more confusing scars…? 

Unnerved by the task ahead of him, he tried to remember his days on the streets, with his beta friends, Izumo and Kotetsu, but then he thought about how quick Naruto could fall into the homeless life if Iruka wasn’t careful with play-acting Alpha. 

Plus, with pain pills and heroin sold everywhere, to anyone, even kids his age, Naruto might fill the void in his heart with them… 

Trying to distract himself from his rambling thoughts and the deluge of the rain, Iruka improvised a fix by pulling a blue plastic tarp through the roof, fixing it on the outside, and nail-gunning it to the rubber slate. His nerves shook, but not because of the storm. This was taking too long. Striving for normalcy. Faking normalcy. Society wanted him to be something he could never be. An alpha. King of the hierarchy. Top of the pile. 

What was he doing alone in this house? Was the hole in his roof actually a metaphor? Was it a hole in his head, where the alpha instincts poured out, leaving him empty, stupid, and useless?

He’d always been teased about it. Everyone had said, Iruka, you’re such a beta-chaser. Wants to live with betas. Wants to love betas. Wants to be a beta. 

But what it was… But what it really was…. It was this: 

_Where did he fit in the world?_

It wasn’t sitting on cardboard under an interstate highway bridge, clutching two beta friends to his chest, humming songs, trying to get them to sleep as they shivered cold against him. 

It wasn’t partying with alphas, omegas, betas, anyone - who really knew? It wasn’t burning liquor down his throat, flashing a wide grin to a girl and a guy, pulling them into the bathroom, pleasuring both of them however he could, a stranger giving him pills, drinking out of the sink, laughing, waking up alone, startled, wondering where he was and how to get away fast.

… for a second, he thought of his Cinderella kiss… Iruka’s hand drifted down to his neck, softly touching where the omega had bit him, recalling a black leather jacket and sharp mismatched eyes staring into him…

It wasn’t in the studio apartment, seeing his friends all partnered up, with his heart hidden away, his thoughts not expressed, his hopes and dreams silently pinned on the next generation.

So, maybe here in this house. Maybe in protecting Naruto. Creating a family with Naruto.

… fortunately, the blue tarp thing worked. Good. 

Conflicted, heart hurting, Iruka scratched at his mysterious facial scar. Glanced out the attic window. Stained glass. Mostly clear. Portions, a light blue hue. A sweet ladylike aquamarine so different from its surroundings. Shadow and storm saturated the attic. Old pink fiberglass insulation protected some spots. Otherwise, dusty dark wood enveloped him, with cheap pale plyboard construction elsewhere in the attic. 

Outside in the rain alone stood Kakashi.

He wore a navy-blue bandana covering his nose down to his collarbone… A headband of the same cloth pushed up his dead-corpse-colored hair out of both his eyes. 

Steam rose off his bruised, battered body. Bright red blood ran in rivers from the bandana down into his shirt. The white long-sleeved shirt was soaked and splattered with lighter, fading blood. Below his loose black shorts, he was barefoot, his toes in the muddy green grass. 

Kakashi’s skin shone white all over –

\- except for all the blood, which was a cherry red color, and his bruises, which ranged a rainbow of hues, flat black to light golden in color. 

Multiple injuries gleamed red and raw across the yard, even in the thunderstorm. The omega’s opponent had smashed him repeatedly across the eyes, purpling both sockets and cutting skin. Under the bandana, Kakashi’s nose must have been broken, and maybe his lip or lips had been busted, too, because new blood kept streaming down his neck into the messed-up shirt.

He wasn’t looking anywhere.

Just staring into nothing. Standing in the rain. Steam pouring off him like a hot spring. 

Blood oozed from his wounds… because the fight was over. Kakashi had won his fight.

The rules of illegal street fighting varied, but Iruka remembered White Fang’s son’s legend, because it sounded so crazy years ago, but romantic and tragic and dark and cruel. Although Kakashi rarely fought, he always fought to the death. That’s what they said, in whispers, in leers, in sneers. Don’t cross the son of White Fang. Don’t fight that omega. He’ll kill you.

Way up in the attic, Iruka sharply realized he was witnessing victory outside his window. An omega triumphing over society by way of murder. He couldn’t imagine what life would be like.  
Stupid. He felt so stupid! Worrying so much about being an alpha? Shame hit him like lightning, just as hard, fast, unexpected, and excruciating. No, it wasn’t nearly as terrible as – 

Standing still in the rain, Kakashi turned his head… and looked up, right up, way up at Iruka’s attic window.

It seemed as if their eyes met through the stained glass.

Iruka jumped back instantly. An undignified sound echoed the attic. He’d cursed, or something. He tried not think about it anymore. Not a second more. Climbed down the ladder. Closed the ceiling door. Went to his sleeping bag. Held the baseball bat like it was Kotetsu. Held the knife like it was Izumo. Didn’t sleep very well. Really very much appreciated the call to substitute teach four hours later. Left the house. Realized he’d never changed clothes halfway through work and that the students were grossed out, but he just acted tough like it was some alpha thing, and not that he was terrified of his next-door neighbor or anything as silly or odd as that.

The next day was the same. This time, Iruka wore a collared shirt, dark slacks, dull brown tie. Cologne covered his anxiety; alpha stereotypes made his jumpiness seem like defensiveness. 

The shed door never opened again. The dog never ran out. Kakashi never reappeared.

Iruka saw Naruto later that week, and he felt his worries finally wash away. Motivation clamored up his ribcage and made a home in his mind. Seeing his student, hearing ‘Iruka-sensei’ and stories from school, it all made sense – he had to work harder, he had to be more devoted! The powerful shine in Naruto’s blue eyes made Iruka want to become whatever the brother-father-uncle he could be in the boy’s life… 

He had once had that look in his eyes, but it faded, burnt out, and fell into ashes as the years went by as the streets took their grotesque toll. 

Such horror would not happen to Naruto! 

He listened to the boy well after school hours. Eventually, Iruka had to walk Naruto back to his foster home, enduring all kinds of complaints, but he made promises to check on him soon. That he could do! Anything bigger than that – anything like ‘I’m making a house for you, I’m starting a life for us’ – no, he couldn’t say that to Naruto just yet. It was too much, too soon. 

He wanted to say ‘come live with me.’ But… nothing was ready. Really. Absolutely nothing was ready.

Painful reality set in again as Iruka walked up the front steps to his rental. The yard needed a mower or something. Whatever could cut down the jungle. A machete, maybe? Tugging at his tie, loosening his collar, he surveyed the porch and winced to himself. No, not ready. Broken floorboards were everywhere he looked. Trash and paint cans stashed away under the house. Of course, the glass windows were fixed. Metal bars locked into place. The roof stopped leaking. Still… no, not ready for a young boy.

Ugh, Iruka felt really fucking hot. Unbearably hot. Off with the tie. The shirt, too. Undershirt… stayed. Slacks and shoes tossed aside. Boxers kept on, too tight. Weird delirium rolled over him. The wood floors looked funny: he could see the individual grain. His alpha senses rocketed right to paranoid, they were so sensitive. Sounds down the street seemed next to his ears, and Iruka hated how it felt, so he went upstairs, sat down, and held the metal baseball bat in his hands. 

Something had made him go into heat.

No, not something…

Someone.

It almost never happened anymore, thankfully. He didn’t see many omegas while substitute-teaching at the middle school. Before renting this house, dreaming his big dream, Iruka had lived with betas. When an omega downed into heat nearby, like at the grocery store or public transit, Iruka bee-lined it home and locked himself in the apartment coat closet. Panting. Dizzy. Primitive.

But no way he’d ever attack an omega!

Society shrugged off rape, which Iruka could not stand, he just – he just couldn’t. The law code had all these loopholes for alphas. Omega heats were an “exception to the rule,” a biological equivalent to the social damnation of “what was she wearing?” or “why was he hanging out with them?” or “what else were they expecting?” Horrible. Just. Unbelievable.

Heats made Iruka so uncomfortable. Alphas never had them on their own – they only had them when omegas triggered them. He’d never adjusted to them. He just reacted to an omega falling under the spell of their hormones, and then –

\- then this, this right now, this hot messy delirium. 

This time… it wasn’t going away. Both his big scars – the one on his face, the one on his back – both of them hurt as if boiling water bathed the tissue. He twisted as he sat on his sleeping bag; he squeezed his eyes shut. His alpha senses practically smelled smoke there was so much fiery sexuality in the atmosphere of his broken-down house. Sweat ran down his face in long lines like an omega was licking there. 

Fighting for his rational thoughts, Iruka shakily considered one terrible possibility…

… Had an omega in heat had broken into his house?

As Iruka looked up, his sweaty dark hair in his eyes, clutching the metal bat to his chest... a man suddenly appeared in the doorframe to the bedroom. He stood slouched, his hands buried in the pockets of his grey sweatpants. He was casually emanating strong enough pheromones to stir even the most controlled alpha to sexual madness.

He was easily, instantly identified. 

He was an omega in heat.

Kakashi, son of the White Fang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Let me know what you think of the story... and what Kakashi has been thinking this whole time...! Also, prepare yourself for the second chapter, which will have smut and revelations!


	2. Kakashi's Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your time, readership, kudos, bookmarks, and comments. I appreciate the goodness in your hearts, especially the folks who leave such inspiring comments and sweet words. It's a tough world out there. I hope I can help, just a little bit, with this story.
> 
> Also: Chapter 3 will be from both of their perspectives. Their meeting was originally going to be in this chapter, but I've decided to devote another 5000+ words to ABO vulnerability, passion, and sex with these two! Please enjoy.
> 
> ____

Like a star in the sky, Kakashi fell to his heat.

Heaviness pulled him down, sinking him into the concrete. Gravity embraced him like a virgin, clingy and confused, unsure how to break him. Blur went his vision, buzz went his hearing. His hands swam the walls like water; the floor, wet with sweat, his sweat, slipped between his toes. 

Dizzy was the world.

Still –

He survived.

This stumbling from the basement to the top floor – this was a practiced task. This upstairs doorknob’s divot, this scar in the round metal – a sign of its purpose – he’d put it there, in case he ever lost his mind. 

Such as now. 

Such as every heat.

Sensitive sensations sucked the rationality right out of him, the identity, the restraint. His skin ached, sure, but his mouth hurt under his bandana, his cock, his – ah, hell - they all missed contact with an alpha, any alpha.

Blind to the thing before him, Kakashi smashed his fist into the punching bag already set up in the room. He hit too hard, crunching bone, but the pain reverberated about his skeleton, so he did it again – and again – and again - shocking his system until his eyes, fucked-up as they were, saw bright red blood splatter on his knuckles and across the sand-bag hanging from the ceiling.

Stepping back, holding himself up, he considered the battle between bodily agony and bodily want – and found – yes, he’d found it again – the right balance, so he could keep his sanity and survive this.

Survive his heat.

It took pain to focus elsewhere. Painful things – well, Kakashi had plenty of that to summon.

Smell of cigarette smoke, sound of drunks laughing distant, feel of cold winter air on bare skin… ah… yeah… the night he met the alpha, the princess, the one who dreamed… 

Soft by his side, submissive, sighing across the darkness –

“Are you lonely like me?”

Lit cigarette still on his lips, Kakashi turned his head slightly to the voice, his blue bandana pooled around his throat. His bike sat nearby in the street, ready for a ride. His presence here was for display, to drum up bets for the next fight: all the shady fucks had stepped aside as he strolled through the house, none so trashed they didn’t recognize the danger. Yet – 

Yet this man – an alpha - his unsteady, untamed pheromones told Kakashi – leaned low on the porch railing, resting his head on his arms, gazing upwards, waiting patient for a response. 

Dark hair, in two tight braids, both sides of the alpha’s face, framing him pretty.

Dark skin, made rosy-red from some drug. 

Dark eyes, overly focused, only looking at Kakashi.

Ah, no. No - only at Kakashi’s eyes. Only his eyes.

Not the knife scar from defending Obito. Not the white skin inherited from his dead mother. Not the perfect likeness of his White Fang father. Not the jacket, the jeans. Not the street legend up close. Not the alpha killer. 

… Was it courage or the drugs or both? Who could tell? Focused on the brave creature before him, Kakashi slowly pulled the cigarette from his mouth and asked, amused, “And what if I am lonely?” 

Of course he was lonely. Looking at this man, who was fixated but so loose he seemed fluid, Kakashi felt like he could even admit it aloud. Perhaps confess to a man out of his mind… 

Unmoving from the porch railing, the alpha’s eyes creased, and he smiled – not slight, not sly – but full-blooded and promising – and it sent Kakashi’s silver eyebrows rising high into the sky.

“I’d kiss you,” the man vowed, looking up at him.

Strange shivers swept Kakashi’s skin: he stared at the alpha, ascertaining the threat. Their flirting was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Why wasn’t this alpha working to dominate him, wreck him, force him into submission? What was this whole thing about kissing? Was this talk just a seductive track to send him into stupidity? Was this – 

Was this a hit?

Dressed plain, his skin unscarred, the alpha was bare-faced and blasé as he leaned heavy on the railing. He appeared unable to tear his gaze from Kakashi; his breathing was as heavy as his drugged body must have felt to him. A swift visual sweep of their surroundings showed no one had followed the man outside, and nothing was in the backyard, just an abandoned pool with a wet black cover and tall wooden fences, their orange paint peeling away.

Glancing back at the alpha… he was still staring at Kakashi… he was struck enamored.

An alpha aiming for an omega. 

Ah. Even if not an assassination. Still. A repulsive sight. 

Crushing out the cigarette on the iron railing, Kakashi looked through the man, seeing his secret truth – the truth of all alphas – the want to dominate – a proud pleased thing atop society’s peak – so he said, a power of his own rolling in his words, knowing he was soon to leave –

“What if I kissed _you?”_

The man moved so fast, it triggered training, but fortunately, the dark-featured lovely was also drugged, making him halfway unstable and unthreatening. When he ended up clutching Kakashi’s arm, his fingers shaking and spread out over the black leather of the sleeve, long-ago-evaporated curiosity bubbled up within Kakashi, so he didn’t crush the alpha into the concrete.

Lucky for him…

Because, so suddenly -

True desperation filled in the alpha’s expression as he gazed up at Kakashi, hope gleaming wet and teary in his dark eyes. Then he pled pure and sweet, like a hopeful princess wishing upon a star, “Oh, please.” As the alpha moved closer to him, holding onto Kakashi’s shoulders like he was chasing starlight in the night sky and was close to a celestial wish, Kakashi’s shocked heart skipped several beats, unable to understand the man’s dreamy demeanor up towards him. 

All his shields fell when the alpha softened like the night wind and whispered, “Please kiss me.”

Instantly - _I want to make a mess of him._

Instantly – Kakashi pushed the man against the wall, and they kissed so rough and deep that he could taste the chemical makeup of the pills the alpha had taken, but he cared more about the alpha’s cock, hard and hot in his hand, and how the man swung between a bitch and a sweetheart every second - Kakashi thought of nothing at all – he only felt the alpha’s kiss and how much he could push the man and how the alpha’s hips jerked and how wet the man’s cock was from all the want – he loved the pain in his shoulders from the man’s sex-anguished grip, the weakness in the alpha’s body and shoving the man badly against the brick wall.

He couldn’t help but terrorize the dreamy perfect thing as he forced the man to come.

That expression – what a honey-sweet princess, so love-struck and thrilled to pieces with him.

Mmmm.

Kakashi watched as the alpha gasped at the very end – and ah, that – tipped him over to his own wish.

A dream he had never dared to have… an alpha of his own.

His own eyes went to the man’s neck, and he did the dangerous thing, what he wanted to do: he leaned down and he bit the sugary creature where fools dreamed to bite _him_ to bond them together.

Ah… The delight and shock twinkling in the man’s dark eyes. It made Kakashi shudder. 

Quick, though – he fell out of real-life fantasy – for there was red-and-blue bright light blinking across the alpha’s face – and Kakashi saw the police cars far up the street coming for the party – and he knew his rank as the most wanted of this lot – and, high on someone else’s sex, he slid a hand over one of the alpha’s long dark braids, hoping to remember them, but then off he went, vaulting over the fence and onto his bike and then away through the city – and –

This heat, he remembered the princess alpha again, that kiss, that dreamy wish, and –

Fuck. Motherfucker. Motherfuckeringfuck.

So. So. So. He punched and kicked the sand-bag until he was panting due to pain, not hormones. The alpha had never been seen again. No dark braids, no dark eyes, no sweet face. Kakashi didn’t need to think of the man to conjure pain. He thought of other pain. All the other pain. 

The first time he fell to hormones, rain flooded the dirty city streets, and Kakashi wanted to drown himself in them. Everything about it ended his understanding of reality; he was no longer himself – now only a needful omega – and the answer seemed simple - his father’s suicidal standard set years earlier. 

To be picked up by the collar, brought inside and protected, that had been unexpected, as had the invitation into the very group who defended him. Of course he recognized a gang when he saw one, but they were a family, too. They looked that way, they acted that way. He wasn’t sure where he belonged, as his own family was all dead, and his heats made him lose pieces of himself each time, but he could obey orders, act like his fallen father’s son, patrol territory, protect these people.

The anabolic steroids helped. Interrupted the heats. Slowly regained some sense of self.

That’s when he really looked around again, saw he was Kakashi, and that was Minato and Kushina, and that was Obito and Rin, and Itachi and Tenzo and Shisui - and – well - he liked them. He couldn’t have admitted it aloud, but – yeah, he – well, he liked all of them. 

Those were good years. He had no heats due to the shots. He fought for the gang; he felt useful as himself, as Kakashi, somewhat even as Kakashi Hatake, son of the White Fang. People recognized him from afar, especially so with the bandana he wore because he so detested the stench of the city and stray alphas. 

Too sweet, like an overripe peach, Rin teased him about his reputation. 

Obito, struck by jealousy, boxed with him all the time – but it was secretly – 

It was secretly fun.

It was the life of a beta, bored of hormones.

But then –

Minato and Kushina both died in a double homicide. Their kid was taken away by Child Protective Services. The family shook at its roots. Secretly an omega, Shisui suicided when another gang tried to steal him, tried to get him to have a heat. Loyal to their bones, Obito and Rin tried to retain the team, but Itachi shadowed off into a despicable street gang and Tenzo mysteriously disappeared into the back of a F.B.I. van., neither ever to be seen again.

With just the three of them, it seemed like life’s intensity ensnared Kakashi by the throat. Watching Obito with Rin, he thought he should leave so the two could have a normal life, but they’d taught him loyalty, he couldn’t betray them by vanishing. The gang’s fate wrecked him; service and sacrifice were all he knew. So he stayed close to the pair, ignoring Obito’s alpha, taking his steroids, moving as often as they needed, doing whatever was required to stay alive.

One night, he caught a knife in the face meant for Obito, and Rin cried over his bloody wound. Filled with shame for being vulnerable, Kakashi pushed her away. He walked the streets, trying to cool off. Yet, hellishly, horrifically, his reputation preceded him here, too – White Fang’s son - and he fought, and he realized he’d have to stay out all night, they couldn’t follow him home -

But Obito and Rin had come searching for him, they were so worried for him.

They were there, suddenly, under the streetlight. They fought for him, they fought beside him. 

Under the dull yellow lights of the cityscape, in the pungent sweat and roiling turmoil, Kakashi felt himself – he felt like himself – he was one of these three. He had – ah, he had a family again.

The alpha’s fist crunched into Obito’s temple - and then Obito’s head hit the curb hard.

Death looked cold and unreal yet again before him. Rin froze up; she fell onto Obito. 

Kakashi did not stop - he finished the fight. 

Minutes later, Obito was one of many corpses in the alleyway. It was of no comfort. Rin needed help to breathe. She could not help Kakashi bring Obito to their apartment. He acted alone in bringing the man home. Despondency was too short and ineloquent a word for Rin’s mourning. Lost to reality, she needed Kakashi to live, and he provided, doing whatever it took to make sure Obito did not have a pauper’s funeral, that Obito had a headstone for his grave, that the rent was paid and the fridge was full, but Rin wouldn’t eat, and she never slept, and, early one morning, she looked over at Kakashi, long, faint, and whispered the words, “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

He took her to therapy. While she was in session, he trained. At night, he fought alphas for money.

She got worse. He started killing the alphas in the paid fights.

Then one day she didn’t wake up. For a long while, Kakashi sat silently beside her, staring at her curled under the bedsheets, her brown hair soft on the pillow. All, anything, and everything collapsed inside him, he endured the police investigation as the prime suspect in the homicide – until the coroner said the Cause of Death was long-term abuse of anabolic steroids for omega, that Rin had heart failure – but Kakashi heard Broken Heart – and he recognized Rin, in death, was still worrying for him – so he quit taking steroid shots.

But he kept fighting alphas in illegal street fights. 

After all, he had to pay for Rin’s gravestone.

After he did that, well –

Kakashi didn’t know what to do. His heats were irregular due to the steroid use. Apparently Rin had stopped having hers entirely. He’d never even known her to be an omega. 

So. He bought a house. He took in street dogs. He trained. He fell into heats. He killed alphas.

So many shitty alphas. The ones he fought, yeah. Looking down on him, well, whatever, who cares. The real issue: he refused to have cauliflower ears – getting hit too many times in the ears, swelling them with blood – so alphas learned that was a weakness – so they hit him directly in the face, often splitting brows, breaking his nose, busting lips. So much blood. 

So he most often choked them to death. His holds merged a guerilla mix of judo, wrestling, and law enforcement techniques; all of them stopped blood to the brain, they were all blood chokes. As an over-aware omega, Kakashi refused to let any alphas stand behind him, and they always wanted to be there, taunting him, trying him, thinking they could rape him mid-fight. 

And that’s how he killed them, choking them from behind, using the so-called rear naked choke.

Standing, sitting, crouched on the floor behind the alpha, Kakashi’s bicep and forearm squeezed the alpha’s neck so hard that the other man’s carotid arteries couldn’t pump blood upwards.

His own blood screaming hot in his veins, his dissimilar eyes wide during war, Kakashi waited out the next few seconds for the alpha’s unconsciousness – then - the next minute for death.

Soon, another corpse in his basement. Blood everywhere. Money made. Bills paid.

Remembering Obito’s death, he tried to avoid killing alphas through head trauma, but it had happened a few times – one punch too hard. But with all his friends dead or gone, only he cared about repeating the terrible thing that taken the life of his old friend. 

He put flowers on Obito’s grave afterwards, feeling chilled he’d echoed Obito’s end.

A couple of months ago, an alpha next door – one had shown up, seemed fine, a bit strange but so was everyone. Kakashi had observed her but said nothing and kept on with life as usual. 

But then the dogs started disappearing.

It was easy enough to discover who took them.

Kakashi had no trouble killing her. He did have trouble burying his dogs without breaking down. He struggled to stop himself from lighting the house on fire. He’d never done arson, but –

But after what she’d done to his dogs –

Damn. Fucking damn.

Sweat in his eyes, Kakashi kicked the sand-bag again, several times. His heat was halfway finished in his body. The sick rolled over him, the worry – about his dog, the last one.

The sole survivor of the pack, Biscuit - she was safe in the shed, away from this, all this.

Ah, another alpha had moved in recently. He’d seen the scarred, scrappy thing in collared shirt, tie, and trousers – a poor man playing professional. Trying to turn the neighborhood around. Fixing broken glass. Putting bars on the windows. Easy renovation work, the easiest stuff. In the soft of night, Kakashi warned Biscuit never to visit the man – murderers took all shapes – yes, he could kill this alpha, too, but if Biscuit died – well - ah, well.

His heat reminded him of this alpha – the one nearby. He’d felt his new neighbor a few times. Stressed out alpha pheromones emanated far too often from the cursed house. It might have been concerning if Kakashi (1) cared about anyone anymore and (2) thought the creature next door was in any way a threat. Maybe the disastrous building disturbed the alpha, or maybe it was the alpha's single unmated life, or maybe whatever made the alpha so sluggish and sorry some days.

Stability returning to him, Kakashi wiped his brow, touching the end of the knife scar. His breath stayed out reach, unattainable, and his skin felt like a stovetop or the outside of a kettle – ah.

The alpha next door – the man had been up in the attic when Kakashi fought last. 

During the storm, he’d faced his opponent in the bright lights of the basement. Thunder outside, Kakashi heard not that, nor the roar of the crowd, just the heart-beat of the rival alpha. He tracked the man’s movements; he mirrored them, avoiding being struck when he could. But the alpha had downed hormone pills, and he’d fucked an omega in-heat right before the fight, so he reeked of her, sex, and some horrid opportunity, shooting nausea and sick into Kakashi. 

Still, the alpha died. Of course, before so, he’d broken bones. 

He’d clawed Kakashi in his death throes.

After the fight, the rain felt good.

Refreshing.

Washing away blood.

But… The pheromones of a…

A distressed alpha.

Ah…

Kakashi had turned to look at the attic – and there was a shadow seen through the storm.

Something had seemed familiar in that second… but his battle still raged, even with the alpha dead, and his blood continued to spill out on the grass. The recovery over the last week had been slow, he’d been so hurt. Through it all, Biscuit had been a good girl. She never jumped on him. She didn’t bite his fingers when he hand-fed her, taking the kibble delicately, so sweet. 

In the shed, she cuddled with him at night. Together, they looked up through the hole in the mossy roof at the night sky. Even now, in his heat, Kakashi dared to imagine that… perhaps…

Perhaps Biscuit saw what he hoped was out there.

Stars. 

Stars he could wish on.

In his heat, in this heat – ah, fuck – again, again with that princess alpha. 

Kakashi always avoided it, but it sometimes happened – his hand went from a clenched fist, bloodied, smashing into the sand-bag… to his abs… pushing down into his shorts, finding his cock. 

Yes, there –

He ignored questioning if he was already hard or not; he avoided wondering if his clothing was wet from sweat or slick. The shaking of his knees – was that from the hard work-out, from trying to interrupt his heat, or was that from this absurd fantasy of the long-disappeared alpha, the one who wished for a kiss? 

… He couldn’t tell. He didn’t care.

His omega senses were so happy he was indulging them and not fighting them. They sung, silly, sunny, stupid. They tried to crash him down to Planet Earth. They tried to radiate pheromones and call for alphas to come hither. They tried to kill the complex identity of Kakashi Hatake.

… He let it do so, just a little.

This way, he remembered the alpha more – the details only his omega picked up – since the alpha was a sexed creature, and so was he. So stoned, but so honest, the man had showed no fear and no reluctance, almost certainly because he didn’t recognize Kakashi the legend. But that was strangely nice, to be seen for who he was in that moment, a lonely omega, waiting alone. There was no façade from the alpha, no bravado, no arrogance – he just wanted Kakashi’s kiss.

In his heat, tight pleasure shook Kakashi’s core; his shoulders trembled, and his eyes shut fast.

Ah, yeah. _Only that alpha._

The storm - a flash of the attic – the shadow –

Confusion wrecking his building orgasm, Kakashi released his cock and looked down at his hand, trying to focus on a single spot but instantly failing. Although the room had stopped melting like rainbow psychedelics cruised his brain, active omega hormones pulled at him, wanting him to fall down and submit. While he wouldn’t surrender, the activity was leaving his body increasingly deteriorated. Rolling his eyes upward, he wondered silently if any of his dead family or friends had the horror of seeing him like this, in the past, or in the present…

He was so weak.

Pressing his forehead against the nearest wall, he tried to remember he needed to fight through the heat, not capitulate to it – otherwise he could attract an alpha in the neighborhood, who he’d then have to kill – probably with a ranged weapon – otherwise he might actually… have… sex…

The idea of sex with an alpha did two things simultaneously to Kakashi.

His omega was so thrilled, his whole body flushed.

Yet his rationality sliced through as strong as steel.

The combination had very rarely happened – and never when he was also thinking of the alpha who had wanted his kiss – and never with the strange memory of observing the attic shadow.

Somehow, somehow…

Kakashi was no longer in his house - then he was no longer in his yard.

He was in the neighbor’s yard - then he was kicking in the locked back door.

He was upstairs – then he was staring down at his neighbor on the floor.

The alpha’s distressed pheromones were high and heightened by Kakashi’s heat.

… more than a few things changed over the last few years. A sweeping scar across the face… Shorter hair, no more braids. More weight. More muscle. Age had given wrinkles. Sobriety staved off the edge. But… altogether… familiar... a shadowy memory indeed.

Also, cute, look - holding a metal bat in his hands for protection.

Clearly the alpha didn’t want to lose himself to his hormones. Seeing him now, it was obvious the man didn’t want to take or exploit a weakened omega, although he could, both legally and sexually. Instead, he’d stayed here, pained, alone in his house, waiting out an unexpected heat.

Ha… Yes, it really was the same man.

So, as Kakashi spoke to him for the first time in years, the words felt so easy to say...

“Do you want another kiss?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Let me know what you think of dear Kakashi's life, and what might happen in the final chapter with our pair!


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